I just wanted to check in to let everyone know that I am still here! Life has been a bit of a whirlwind for me and I haven't had time to be creative, bake, or blog about the fun things I have been experiencing. Life has been, well, better than great for me. A new chapter, a new start. This breath of fresh air has been quite enlightening for me.

All in all, I have doing well. Thank you for checking in and I promise to update as soon as possible -- it's the holidays! I always get creative during this time of year!

I am big fan of apples, yet of all my year spent at Disneyland I have not tried one of their caramel apples. My parents rarely bought us snacks at the parks growing up and as an adult, I was just being frugal. Plus, they looked hard to eat. Recently, I was strolling through Downtown Disney when my co-creative mind twin Amy and I stopped to watch the chefs decorate fancy caramel apples. We were memorized because we love crafty stuff like this. Plus, it was nice to know that they use everyday products like Marshmallow Jets brand like we do. My friend Roger was so shock when he found out that I have yet to try one and so he bought one for Amy and I to share!

This is the Apple Pie Caramel Apple and it was so good! I always though these were too expensive, but it feeds two so that cuts down the price a lot. Amy and I were annoyed that the CM put the sticker on upside-down though.

Wow, this Viking Helmet birthday cake I made for a friend's husband's 30th birthday/Fourth of July was a very learning experience for me and my baking partner, Amy.

When my friend emailed me sample photos of what she wants the cake to look like, Amy and I thought it would be a difficult, but easily do-able. We never imagined the challenges that we would face when creating this cake! Fun times!

Trying to figure out the perfect size for the cake to feed 20-25 was interesting because we decided to do a quarter sheet cake with a semi-circle cake on top.

The cakes were chocolate with vanilla and strawberry filling, which was delicious!

To create the horns of the Viking helmet, we had the option of using different materials, including shaped Styrofoam. Instead, we opted for the edible Rice Krispies treat. Amy was in charge of making and creating these horns, which she foamed so smoothly! What we didn't take into consideration was how long it would take for the Rice Krispies to harden. Oops!

I covered the round Viking helmet cake with tinted fondant and added edible silver dust to give it a metal-like shine. With the extra fondant, Amy and I created the details for the helmet. Notice that every single ball on the helmet is perfect round and evenly sized... that is Amy's doing! Love her!

We were really proud of our Viking Helmet, minus the horns. When it came to adding the horns, which we covered in smooth white vanilla frosting and edible gold dust for shine, we realized that the weight of the horns was not going to stand in the helmet cake. Oh no!

(Yes, we know the Rice Krispies horns look a lot like bananas on the stick... or something else. Haha!)

After much discussion, contemplating, and research, we decide to take a risk and try to add the horns and use lollipop sticks to hold the horns in place. The sticks can stay there until the horns decides to stay in place or it can stay in there permanently.

Also, notice the sheet cake the Viking helmet is resting on? Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and covered in white fondant. That is THE smoothest fondant sheet cake I have worked with and it was all thanks to Amy again! Her attention to detail and ability to perfect things is amazing.

I was so nervous about this cake, but after adding some Fourth of July flair (strawberries and blueberries), the overall cake turned out quite alright, if you can ignore the propping sticks.

Much thanks to my amazing baking partner Amy for going through this learning experience with me. I honestly don't know what I would do without her! Also, I have to thank my sister Cindy for helping me carefully deliver this cake, which was another stress factor in this experience!

I hope the birthday boy had a wonderful time celebrating his big 3-0 and had a happy Independence Day!

I created a special Choo-choo Train cake for one of my favorite little boys around, who recently celebrated his 2nd birthday. Little J has this fascination with trains and I thought it would be perfect to create a cake that he can call his own.

I wanted to create simple cupcakes for the party guests, but include an individual cake for Little J. For this project, I actually played around with creating my own cupcake and cake stand! I got this idea from my super talented friend Tania of Cake4Six. For my cake stand, I used various sizes of cardboard cake circles, styrofoam cylinders, ribbon, and wrapping paper. It was really easy to create and it is both inexpensive, disposable, and you can theme it however you want it to look!

The cake is a two layered 6" Funfetti cake with vanilla frosting. The cake is covered with tinted fondant, as well as the cake decorations. I was lucky to have my good friends Roger and Amy stop by to help me work on the cake details! Roger even left a nice hand grip impression on the actual cake when he went to pick it up, thinking it was just a bowl or a mold! Because the cake was pretty small, we had a difficult time trying to figure how to shape the train-- should we do only the engine? How many passenger trains can we fit? Will it look funny curved on the cake? Should we add train tracks? I was really happy with how the cake turned out! Mucho gracias to my wonderful friends!

The cupcake were much simpler. I just made Funfetti cupcakes and topped them with vanilla frosting and colored sanding sugar.

Overall, I wanted the cake to have a fun two-year-old feel to it-- bright colors, simple recipes, and large details! Little J seemed happy with his cake and had some fun playing with this "trains" after we sang "Happy Birthday" and blew out the candles!

When you have a type-A personality, you want to have everything scheduled and have ample time to mentally prepare and plan everything. That is usually how I approach cake decorating. I need time to mentally prepare myself and get into that creative mindset. I also need time to gather my material. So, when my mom approached me and ask if I can create a simple two-tiered cake for my aunt's Open House party tomorrow, I went into frantic mode.

I was lucky enough to have store bought cake mix and frosting at home so that saved me time from any real baking. I also had a bit of leftover fondant, gum paste, and only green, brown, yellow, and red tinted coloring to work with. After a few minutes to trying to find inspiration online, I realized I was on a deadline if I wanted to sleep at all.

I love bright colors so I decided cover the cake in green fondant with brown gum paste as a rock-inspired border (top tier). I decided to create a little house out of white fondant and the last of the brown gum paste for the roof and chimney. I didn't know what I can create with my yellow and red fondant so I create a nice walkway and a cartoonish car. The cake was still missing something so I threw in a tree, but because I didn't have any more brown gum paste or green fondant, I had to settle for a yellow trunk, 2D apple tree. Finishing touches includes adding grass to the cake, adding details to the house and walkway with edible inked pens, and piping "Congrats" on the cake. In hindsight, I should not have been lazy and changed the writing color from green to white so that it would stand out more.

There are many little mistakes I made when creating this cake because of lack of time and materials. As I have mentioned before, each creation is such a learning process. So this is my less than 24hour notice cake! Usually I like to document my baking and designing process, but I was in such a rush I didn't stop to take any pictures. Sorry!

It is amazing to see your piece of work being destroyed and enjoyed!

Congrats to my uncle, aunt, and cousins Tommy and Nancy on their new home!

I had the pleasure of helping my good friend Joanna Park of Floral Sense plan a a little boys' Scooby-Doo birthday party. Her vision of bright blues and greens are so fun to work with, especially when it comes to decorations and the dessert table.

Joanna was super creative when planning this event and came with clever treats for the dessert table.

I created mini chocolate cupcakes... perfect size for snacking!

Joanna had some delicious meaty treats, but this beef jerky are for humans, not dogs!

I created simple white-chocolate covered Oreo cookie pops in blue to match the theme. Joanna came up with the clever idea of presenting them in delicate white tins filled with blue and green Fruit Loop cereals!

Also available were these deliciously cute mini donuts by Dough-a-Deer.

Scooby Snacks!

I experimented by adding a little twist with chocolate-covered Rice Krispies pops!

So happy these turned out well... and they taste great too!

And the centerpiece of it all.... the birthday boy's Scooby-Doo cake!

Joanna provided more pictures and details from this adorable and creative event on her Floral Sense blog.

My dad is a Master instructor at Tom Vo's Tae Kwon Do Academy and they do monthly birthday celebrations for their students. My dad's birthday was in February and he wanted to bring something for all of his students during his birthday month. Too bad he told me the night before the event if I can whip up come cupcakes for him.

With just a few hours to create, no supplies, and no time to prep or design, I whipped up some simple and messy Tae Kwon Do cupcakes for my dad and his students.

Baked48 cupcakes, 24 rainbow yellow cake and 24 chocolate cupcakes. I was lucky to have some ready-made frosting to tint and use. Notice the movie on the right? My favorite movie ever, Con Air. I always put on a movie to listen to when I am baking and decorating.

I decided to make the cupcakes look like karate uniforms since Tae Kwon Do uniform aren't as recognizable in cupcake form (instead of the "Y" neckline, it is a "V" neckline). Because I was short on time, I stuck to two colors: red and black. If I had more time, I would made each cupcake with a different color belt. Luckily the TKD uniforms are white so that saved me some time.

The cupcakes look pretty decent after they were all boxed up and ready to go. It can be such a pain to try to quickly whip up sometimes with little or no warning, but I always have fun doing so. Always a learning experience, too!!

I am so sorry I've gone missing for awhile. Life has been really busy and I have not had a chance to update this as much as I want. Please forgive me.

When I do find the time to sit down and update, I will include some scrappy, last minute Tae Kwon Do cupcakes I made for my dad, a fun colored Scooby-Doo cake, some scrapbook pages I've finally finished, and something called vinylmations.

Thank you for continuing to check on my blog! Fun stuff to come, I promise!

The entire cake and cupcakes took over 20 hours to do. I must be a slower worker because these are generally simple cupcakes.

So my friend Nicole's daughter's first birthday was earlier this month and she asked if I would create the cake and cupcakes for the party! I was so honored that she asked and told her I would love to! Nicole and her daughter, Aubrey are currently in love with this children television show called Yo Gabba Gabba. Yo who??? That was my first reaction. Apparently, Yo Gabba Gabba is a huge hit among babies, toddlers, and young kids these days. The new Sesame Streets. Or the new Barney.

Because I was unfamiliar with this show and the characters, I had to do plenty of research to see what colors, designs, and themes I can use for my creation. I even forced myself to watch an episode or two.

(The main characters of the show, minus DJ Lance-something.)

Nicole asked for simple white cake, but Lisa does not so simple! For the cake, I decided to make a two-tier funfetti cake, which is white cake with sprinkles mixed in. I used white vanilla whipped frosting to layer the cakes. Fondant was used to color and decorate the cake! I tried to write Aubrey's name on the cake, but of course I can't keep it straight!

(The bottom tier of the funfetti cake.)

(This HUGE hunk of white fondant was dyed blue and enough to cover both the bottom tier and top tier of the cake. That is a lot of fondant for Little Lisa to work with! Talk about an arm and hand work out!)

(Bottom tier covered with whipped frosting and fondant. I added the fondant Yo Gabba Gabba characters. Did you notice the yellow Wall-e looking guy is upside down? I didn't... not until a few hours before the party. Yikes!)

(Added the second fondant-covered tier to my cake! Luckily I didn't need to use any dowels to hold up the second tier.)

(Threw in some simple blue and yellow dots in various sizes to add more fun to the cake.)

(Add some green borders, flower dots, and Aubrey's name, which is orange for DJ Lance Rock, and ta-da! Also flipped poor yellow Wall-e/Johnny Five over.)

For the cupcakes, I tinted white cake in multicolors and made rainbow cakes to match the bright colors of Yo Gabba Gabba. The cupcakes are covered with tinted buttercream frosting and some have fondant decor pieces.

(The rainbow cupcakes look so fun!)

(Getting the eyes, flowers, and other fondant detail pieces ready.)

(I love my Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes!!!)

(The inside of the cupcakes are so fun to look at! Everybody was really surprised!)

(Cake and cupcakes together! All done!)

Happy 1st Birthday, Miss Aubrey!

I love my little Aubrey. I was there with her mommy to listen to her first heartbeat, was there when her mommy was in labor, and was there to witness her come into the world. I can't believe it's been a year already. Such a beautiful, emotional day. Little Aubrey was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and because I had some experience with individuals with Down Syndrome, I knew I was meant to be in this child's life. I love her and her mommy dearly and watching her grow has been an amazing experience. Auntie Lisa will always be here for you!

About Me

Contact Info

Email: LisaKLe@gmail.com

Google Chat: LisaKLe

Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisakle

About My Blog

I created this blog as a simple online journal to help me keep track of my fun creations. I never intended to make this blog public, but because many people have asked to see what I have done in the past, I've decided opened it up to everybody.
Feel free to contact me with questions, suggestions, or comments. Also, if you need me to create something for you, I am available for brainstorming. I would love to hear from you!
Lots of Love!